THE INTEGRATION OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIP BY STRATEGIC MODEL AND STRATEGIC PLANNING

The best higher education institutions do not educate and train only the students who are the new work force for the global market for the future, but also create new ideas and knowledge for the short-term contemporary issues as well long term complex issues, which the industry needs critically. However, not all the universities are successful in providing technology-based innovation so that they need new and dynamic strategic model and planning. The strategic model is understanding the needs of the socio-economic-political-cultural-environmental aspects of the interest groups, who are the students, the labor market, and different industries. In order to meet the needs, the higher education institutions should take into consideration their competencies and interest. While deciding and matching these two aspects, the alternative costs and profits should be taken into account critically for short-term and long-term goals of the universities.

Additionally, in the strategic goals, five aspects are critical in higher education. The first one is the democratization of knowledge and access, which means access to university education in order to gain innovative knowledge for the developing and competitive markets. The second aspect is the contestability of the market and funding, which is one of the most important subjects for all the universities in this competitive market economy. The third aspect is related to the research technologies, including digital. The universities should deal with the latest technologies in order to create new values in the market as well as in the society. The forth perspective is about the global mobility in which most of the academics as well as the student find different opportunities for global partnership and dynamic synergy to improve talents and competencies. The most important aspect, however, is the integration with the industry. Universities need to develop significantly deeper partnerships with industry by changing teaching and learning programs, supporting the funding and application of research, and reinforcing the role of universities as drivers of innovation and growth. Taking into consideration all these strategic purposes, on the other hand, the strategic plan is making a kind of a gun chart to see the performances for one year, two years, five years, ten years, twenty years, and more.

In this study, the strategic models and plans of the public (5) and private (5) universities are analyzed from the five different aspects. In order to understand deeply the dynamics at these universities, the phenomenological interpretive analysis is preferred. In the depth interviews, the academics and the professionals of the technology transfer offices as well as the active researchers and academics answered 21 questions about the strategic model and planning.

The results show that the private universities are 75% better in developing business models and business plans. Additionally, most of the participants (88%) are not aware about the strategic model and plan. More importantly, they (95%) have wrong perception related to the strategic model and plan. Regarding to the 5 strategic purposes, two public universities as well as 3 private universities are aware about, but they do not have well-developed and well-defined strategic model and plan